The Greatest Works of E. E. Smith. E. E. Smith

The Greatest Works of E. E. Smith

he asked, when the visiting was done. "I've got to make a speech, and it'd be nice to have you hold my head."

"I'd be glad to," and the Chicago took off.

Half of North America was dark when they neared Tellus; all of it, apparently, was obscured by clouds. Only the navigating officers of the vessel knew where they were, nor did either of the two Lensmen care. They were having too much fun arguing about the talents and abilities of their respective grandsons.

The Chicago landed. A bug was waiting. The two Lensmen, without an order being given, were whisked away. Samms had not asked where the speech was to be given, and Kinnison simply did not realize that he had not told him all about it. Thus Samms had no idea that he was just leaving Spokane Spaceport, Washington.

After a few miles of fast, open-country driving the bug reached the city. It slowed down, swung into brightly-lighted Maple Street, and passed a sign reading "Cannon Hill" something-or-other—neither of which names meant anything to either Lensman.

Kinnison looked at his friend's red-thatched head and glanced at his watch.

"Looking at you reminds me—I need a haircut," he remarked. "Should have got one aboard, but didn't think of it Joy told me if I come home without it she'll braid it in pigtails and tie it up with pink ribbons, and you're shaggier than I am. You've got to get one or else buy yourself a violin. What say we do it now?"

"Have we got time enough?"

"Plenty." Then, to the driver: "Stop at the first barber shop you see, please."

"Yes, sir. There's a good one a few blocks further along."

The bug sped down Maple Street, turned sharply into plainly-marked Twelfth Avenue. Neither Lensman saw the sign.

"Here you are, sir."

"Thanks."

There were two barbers and two chairs, both empty. The Lensmen, noticing that the place was neatly kept and meticulously clean, sat down and resumed their discussion of two extremely unusual infants. The barbers went busily to work.

"Just as well, though—better, really—that the kids didn't marry each other, at that," Kinnison concluded finally. "The way it is, we've each got a grandson—it'd be tough to have to share one with you."

Samms made no reply to this sally, for something was happening. The fact that this fair-skinned, yellow-haired blue-eyed barber was left-handed had not rung any bells—there were lots of left-handed barbers. He had neither seen nor heard the cat—a less-than-half-grown, gray, tiger-striped kitten—which, after standing up on its hind legs to sniff ecstatically at his nylon-clad ankles, had uttered a couple of almost inaudible "meows" and had begun to purr happily. Crouching, tensing its strong little legs, it leaped almost vertically upward. Its tail struck the barber's elbow.

Hastily brushing the kitten aside, and beginning profuse apologies both for his awkwardness and for the presence of the cat—he had never done such a thing before and he would drown him forthwith—the barber applied a styptic pencil and recollection hit Samms a pile-driver blow.

"Well, I'm a...!" He voiced three highly un-Samms-like, highly specific expletives which, as Mentor had foretold so long before, were both self-derogatory and profane. Then, as full realization dawned, he bit a word squarely in two.

"Excuse me, please, Mr. Carbonero, for this outrageous display. It was not the scratch, nor was any of it your fault. Nothing you could have done would have...."

"You know my name?" the astonished barber interrupted.

"Yes. You were ... ah ... recommended to me by a ... a friend...." Whatever Samms could say would make things worse. The truth, wild as it was, would have to be told, at least in part. "You do not look like an Italian, but perhaps you have enough of that racial heritage to believe in prophecy?"

"Of course, sir. There have always been prophets—true prophets."

"Good. This event was foretold in detail; in such complete detail that I was deeply, terribly shocked. Even to the kitten. You call it Thomas."

"Yes, sir. Thomas Aquinas."

"It is actually a female. In here, Thomasina!" The kitten had been climbing enthusiastically up his leg; now, as he held a pocket invitingly open, she sprang into it, settled down, and began to purr blissfully. While the barbers and Kinnison stared pop-eyed Samms went on:

"She is determined to adopt me, and it would be a shame not to requite such affection. Would you part with her—for, say, ten credits?"

"Ten credits! I'll be glad to give her to you for nothing!"

"Ten it is, then. One more thing. Rod, you always carry a pocket rule. Measure this scratch, will you? You'll find it's mighty close to three millimeters long."

"Not 'close', Virge—it's exactly three millimeters, as near as this vernier can scale it."

"And just above and parallel to the cheek-bone."

"Check. Just above and as parallel as though it had been ruled there by a draftsman."

"Well, that's that. Let's get finished with the haircuts, before you're late for your speech," and the barbers, with thoughts which will be left to the imagination, resumed their interrupted tasks.

"Spill it, Virge!" Kinnison Lensed the pent-up thought. If Carbonero, who did not know Samms at all, had been amazed at what had been happening, Kinnison, who had known him so long and so well, had been literally and completely dumbfounded. "What in hell's behind this? What's the story? GIVE!"

Samms told him, and a mental silence fell; a silence too deep for intelligible thought. Each was beginning to realize that he never would and never could know what Mentor of Arisia really was.